


Far From Shore

by MrUndisclosed



Series: NSR- Withinfinite [4]
Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: Art, Conversation, Creation, Friendship, Friendship between two people who long ago stopped being people, Gen, Neon J is very flamboyant at all times, Topics of loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29464593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrUndisclosed/pseuds/MrUndisclosed
Summary: Both of them started out as human but they'd drifted very far away from that all too familiar shore. They're alone, a species of one a piece, but at least they can be alone together. Two friends discuss the meaning of "Owning" another person and envy one another from afar.
Series: NSR- Withinfinite [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151441
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Far From Shore

There’s an adage that the city never really sleeps and for the most part it’s true. There’s always someone awake somewhere, lights are always left on but there is a time period in which it all luls and slows down. When the city takes a long deep breath and closes its eyes for a moment, drifts off into something approaching sleep. It’s around 3 am everywhere, the witching hour or whatever you want to call it.

Still some people actually do not sleep, they don’t need to sleep….or eat….or breathe or do anything that would allow you to consider them people at all. 

“It’s a lovely night,” Neon J fiddled with a small colourful sphere in his metallic hands, “shame about all the smog or you could see the stars the way I can.” 

“You can see the stars?” Eve sat on the railing around the top of the NSR building, legs swinging slightly as she watched the world below. Neon J tilted his screen toward her, a small window in one corner stretched outward to a view of an uncontaminated night sky. “Dear me, what a view.” 

“I’ve got contracts with a local observatory and thanks to the NSR satellite uplink I can manually adjust some of their telescopes,” J let out a little laugh as the coloruful sphere’s patterns began to twist and match across the curve of the shape. “Let’s me have an eye on the sky anytime I want, even if it does make my spine tingle when I move the thing.” 

“Still, to have the heavens open to you at all hours. Quite lucky.” Eve looked at the little corner of his screen and the stars floating therein. “What is this...toy you have?”

“You like it?” J held up the colorful little sphere and handed it to Eve. “One of the merchandiser fellas came up with it and I think it’s the bee’s knees.” J went on twitching his fingers as Eve took the ball. It was covered in bright colours with the members of 1010 scattered across it. “One of them activity ball things, you solve it when all the members are in the right colours. Then it plays a lil jingle.” 

“How charming.” Eve said twisting the shape this way and that, quickly spinning and twisting portions of the ball until at last the members of 1010 stood out, a brief mechanical clapping sound followed from the device as the members started to jive and belt a tinny tune. “Not the most difficult thing.”

“Well it’s for the tykes.” J went on. “Yinu adores the things but I wanted to get bad at it before I saw her next.” He laughed a little at that and so did she. 

“Let me guess, predictive calculus again?” 

“Yup. The minute they gave it to me, the second I had it the computer brain fired up and I now know how to solve it in 2.5 seconds.” J sighed and leaned against the railing, resting the edges of his creen in the crook of his thumbs. “Yinu can’t quite solve it very fast so...I wanted to...learn all the worst says to do it. So if she wants to play I don’t just solve it in front of her in less time than it takes for her to make move one.” 

“I’m sure she’d appreciate that.” Eve said, handing back the toy and J stuffed it in his pocket. “Do you ever miss sleep? Sometimes I do.” She sighed while looking at J and the stars he contained.

“Oh the things I miss could fill a book.” J went on. “Sleep is up there, but we didn’t come here to play the what do you miss game, did we?” J turned to look up at Eve. “Cause if we did I don’t wanna play tonight, not in the mood for it.” 

“No not that game.” Eve said with something like a smile on her face. J was...a friend? A fellow victim? A co-conspirator against the world? She wasn’t sure what J was to her exactly but he was without a doubt a person Eve felt sympathy for. He got it, he got exactly what it was like to be them. More than her at times she even imagined, at least she could still pass as a human being. “I have a question for you J, it has to do with relationships.” 

“Wow heavy,” J stood up and clapped his steel hands, “I can’t promise you a good answer but I can promise to give you my best answer.” J didn’t look up at the stars, he didn't have to but he tweaked a few things. Wires cross, a spark ignites and then he’s looking down at the world through the NSR satellite network. His eyes a many trillion times zoom lens with enough clarity to count the hairs on Eve’s head from the heavens above. Slowly he moves the camera through the streets and decides to play a game of counting how many people are out at 3 am.

“Can you own a person, J?” Eve asked him and she heard his fans whir in response. He turned to look at her, a physical response only necessary to ensure that he had in fact heard her. Physical motion was done entirely for J’s sanity and your comfort. 

“We talking….like….actually or like?” J needed context here, Eve. He looked at her and she leaned on her thighs. “Cause there’s a lot of answers to this question and some are gonna lead to me and you falling out.” 

“Not...actually.” Eve said with a shake of her head. “Someone I speak to said someone belonged to them and they belonged to that person.” Eve wanted to be vague, no need to name names in this debacle. Mayday’s strange words still twisted through her mind. How could she...claim to own Zuke and be his too? What does that mean? You can’t own a thing you belong to, that’s not how it works. 

“Ahh,” J felt that was a slightly more approachable topic. “Well I mean,” J tapped his fingers together, “it sort of sounds like they’re an item.” J said and Eve looked at him. “A couple you know.” He spun around and ran his hands up and down his sides, slowly swaying from side to side. “Couple.” 

Eve looked away, a laugh in her throat. No it wasn’t that….they’d never...done couple things. She’d observed them, they were close certainly. Very close, worryingly close at times. The sort of close people would assume you were a couple but they never seemed to be that way. “I do not think they are, they...would do a good impression of one but they are not like that.” 

“Hmm,” J stopped pretending to make out with himself, chassis creaking as he popped his hips to one side. He felt an iota of curiosity at this an- Oh three kids out at 3 am tagging graffiti that’s naughty- d it wasn’t a bad feeling. “I suppose that people can give themselves to each other or parts of themselves to each other.” 

“They can?”

“Just ask the military about my sterling contributions.” J said turning to her, his screen displaying a crude graphic of a skull and crossbones. “I’ve given em most of what I had at this point.” 

“Oh that’s awful, J.” Eve looked away from the image. She never laughed at that, never even cracked a smile. She sighed and looked out over the city. “I’ve never heard of that before...giving pieces of yourself to others, it sounds a painful process.” 

“Again so long as you ain’t as literal as me…” J went on and she gave him a look, he held up a hand for peace. “Okay no more of that. But...it’s not literal, Eve.” 

“I didn’t think it was.” Eve drawled leaning down to the cyborg. “I am not simple, J.”

“No you are not.” J replied. “You also might be the only person who could do it and not be inconvenienced, so I’m making my point clearer here.” J was blithely aware of the sort of things Eve could do, he was sure the surface hadn’t been scratched. Still at times she was...distressingly obvious. For all the metaphors and imagery of her art and shows sometimes she just DID things that you wouldn’t do or couldn’t do. 

It was best to be clear and concise with Eve, to avoid such engagements. 

“When you…” J raised a hand, then tapped it against his monitor pacing away from Eve. He kept tapping his monitor and turned around, cape floating out behind him. “Love!” He cried out arms wide. “Love is a miracle machine, Eve!” He told her, walking back over to her. The Diva looked at the cyborg as he fell to one knee in front of her, a hand on his chest and the other outstretched toward her. “Love makes us all do strange things! We believe we can fly! We think we’ve got thunder in our breasts! That we could swim an ocean if it lay between the people we care about!” He stood up, fists clenched so hard sparks flew. “We get hot all over, we feel like we’re gonna be sick and we have no idea why! It’s an awful, messy, ooey gooey affair and I miss it a lot!” 

J sighed, opening his hands and steam rose into the air. “But when people are in love- any type of love- they can do impossible things easily! So easily!” J looked at her and her expression was flat, unreadable, totally without emotion. “Giving a little bit of yourself to somebody is easy when you care about them….hell giving all of yourself away is easy to do when you care.” 

“J?”

“Yes, Eve?” 

“Are you feeling alright?” Eve tilted her head and J, shook a little at the shoulders. “Is something the matter?” 

“No. Nothing.” J replied, putting his hands on his hips. “I thought a...umm,” he waved a hand and the hand spun around on his wrist servos, “verbose display would help make my point. I take it that it did not?” 

Eve smiled at the machine man, he tried too hard to feel. He was full of emotions and Eve wasn’t sure if she envied him for that or just felt bad for him. He was so articulate in his movements but no matter what he did or said it all felt artificial at times. Grand displays, sweeping gestures, but that electronic voice and the lack of a face just...got in the way. She knew it was real, there was nothing false about Neon J. Neon J was at the end of the day the most genuine human being Eve had ever met. 

She had read somewhere, years ago. That art forgery was becoming socially acceptable, because at the end of the day it was still art. The issue of the art was it was imitation of great and incredible pieces intended- primarily- to replace or aid in the theft of the original. But now forgers signed their work and sold it to people for big money. Someone...had once said that in a contest between the original and a fake there can be no replacing the original. 

Many artists agreed with this idea but a few, a few strange sorts of artists who made Eve smile just a bit had a contrary opinion. They had said that the forgery was much more valuable than the real thing. As it tried to imitate the original work, down to the brush strokes and aged paints and techniques it transcended the idea of original. It was a new work of an old piece and it had thrown off the idea that all art was irreplaceable and lost to time. 

A fake that tries so hard to be real surpasses the reality of the original which does not try at all to be. 

Was there more value in Neon J then? She would find herself wondering, a man once but...no longer. A man who clung tightly to childish things and grand displays of emotions he no longer remembered how to feel. She did not think of Neon J as human at all...he’d outgrown them a good while back, he was just...Neon J and that’s all he ever needed to be. 

“No, I understood.” Eve said with a warm smile. “The idea of being able to give yourself up to something is big in the art world. Dedication to a style, a movement, a form…” She stands up on the railing and walks across it like it's as easy as breathing, it probably is for her. “Painters who learn a style until it’s all they have. Musicians who wrestle an instrument into submission with bloody fingers and writers who spend decades on scraps of paper that hold whole worlds.” 

She steps off the railing and into thin air, Neon J all but dives to grab at her but he remembers who he’s talking with. He watches her just wander out over the city, hands behind her back and looking down. 

“So why then does it seem so...strange to do it for a person?” Eve asked aloud looking down. “The others are trading themselves for...skills and a chance at fame. If you are giving yourself up you expect a return, surely?” 

“Not necessarily.” J called out leaning against the railing. “I mean...the ‘return’ as it is never assured in the above case. People spend years working and never get satisfied with what they have despite their contribution of hours and days.” 

“Some people are greedy,” Eve replied with a curt shrug, “to create is a great privilege and to be able to create well is a matter of opinion we must find within ourselves. Many are content with scribbles and many could build a palace of gold and weep at the lack of polish.”

“Considering how much WD you’d need for a palace of gold I’d weep at it too.” Neon J said, holding up a hand. “Well...I’d mist my screen a little.”

“J if you tell me that you have a little bottle for misting your screen and pretending to cry, I might honestly have to hit you.” Eve looked at him over her shoulder, a smile on her face. J shrugged his shoulders. 

“Well now you get to live in ignorance because I’m not giving you an excuse to dent this hardware.” He placed the back of his hand against his screen, a view of baying fans leaping up and down displayed on it. “You’d upset all the fans I have.”

“Those look like 1010 fans.” 

“Those are my fans too.” Neon J said with a languid stretch, hands behind his head. “I made em, every 1010 fan is a Neon J fan at heart, you can’t love the portrait without the artist.” 

“Yet many will.” Eve went on. “Artist and art are tethered but rarely always in the minds of the viewer. We’re conduits and then we let the ideas go to the people. A piece is only ours so long as we’re making it, after that it belongs to the masses. Ignorant though they may be.” 

“Ehhhh,” Neon J wasn’t sure if she was gonna walk much further out but she made a slow circle around the building and he walked in time with her, keeping pace. Eve was...honest but Eve was also brilliant but also Eve was...a bit lacking in sense. Neon J had read many people posit her duality as a core theme in her work and while he could see it, he often wondered if she wasn’t trying to be...contradictory. 

She was rich but had no care for money. Talented and gifted but had no time for her audience. Evocative but without a single feeling behind it. Neon J wasn’t sure when Eve happened but he walked back down the line of creations through the years until he met Nadia. 

Nadia was a lanky thing of smiles and awkward laughter, colourful clothes and strange hobbies to while away the hours. He looked up Nadia and he found results, his mind was connected to servers and services and media that dizzied him at times. He found old videos uploaded online, nervous first swims in the waters of creation that already showed great promise. He found videos of her and that blue haired Zuke fellow, he found….lots of pictures of them together. 

Somewhere, somewhen, somehow….Nadia went away and Eve happened. The little human part of her drifted off, was worn away or sharpened into what she was now. J felt for her at least he stopped being human in pieces, she cast it all away at once. He felt bad for Eve, his companion drifting away from the shores of humanity. 

Could either of them swim back?

He rather hoped she could, these questions were a good sign that somewhere there was a person still inside of Eve. He hoped one of them got back to the shore, it was nice there. He felt for Eve but he couldn’t help but admire how she owned what she had become. He hid in the wings but she was too big to ignore, strength. He envied that. 

“Ehhhhh?” Eve imitated. “Is there more to that thought?”

“Sorry processor error.” Neon J said waving a hand. “Artistic interpretation wasn’t much use in jarhead U so I can’t comment too succinctly.” He’d read two hundred forty seven books on art criticism and he remembered every single word of them. His memory was flawless, a thing of razor sharp precision. It ached, it burned and it never stopped being whole and perfect in all the worst ways. 

“It’s not an easy subject I’m coming to learn.” Eve went on. “So you can give yourself or parts of yourself to someone and get nothing in return...why would you do it?”

“You don’t get a choice sometimes.” Neon J flopped back against the railing, and wished he could sigh. Sighs were such great communicative tools. They could mean a dozen things. “Sometimes you just….do it.” Neon J said. “You just meet someone special and they just get a piece of you, it’s all theirs and you can’t stop them. They can hold it close or return it to your one day rotten and destroyed, that’s being with people Eve.” 

“A coin flip between tragedy and wonder?” 

“Yeah.” Neon J said. “Love hurts or it gives ya wings,” he crossed his hands over hooking his thumbs and flapping his steel fingers up and up over his head until pulling them apart. “Not much more to it. Some people give up lots of themselves and others covet little pieces. If you’re able to give your all to someone and get that back….that’s a good bond, I’d say.” 

“A romantic one?”

“I never said that. Love is...like art, I guess. It’s big and unwieldy and...huge.” Neon J said. “You can give yourself to a friend, a job, an idea or whatever you want. But you can’t...make someone do it, you don’t take parts from people. You gotta give em up.” 

“You know a lot about love for a man of steel, J.” Eve said.

“I just know how to talk and sound like I’ve got it all put together.” Neon J felt a buzz on his mind, radar sense telling him something was behind him. He didn’t want to turn around for some reason, he felt it would be...dangerous. 

“Have you ever been in love, J?” Eve asked and yeah...that was….a dangerous question, Eve. That one struck broadside, boat sinking and everyone into the deep black water. 

“I dabbled in love.” Neon J replies wishing he could sigh again. “Ups and downs, for sure. I gave a lot of myself away and got a lot of people back. Lotta hurt but a lotta of good.” 

He turns around and gets a screenful of her, warning lights in his grey matter spike up, auxiliary sensors tell him his heart rate is spiking, artificial lungs are being forced to draw in more air and all kinds of other stuff. He knows, he knows when a lady looks so damn pretty she takes your breath away, shut up. Damn machines, let him just….fucking feel, for a bit. 

“Do you regret it?”

“Not a second.”

Her face is so close, he wouldn’t lean forward though. He wouldn’t do that with Eve. It wasn’t what you did for coworkers. It wasn’t what you did for friends either, she needed a couple of them. Not idiots gawking in the crowd. 

“I’m not sure I’ve been given anything, I tried to take a lot a few times.” Eve’s face, those big sad eyes that look full of stars are gonna be locked in that flawless memory for a long time and that hurts. “I took everything once or twice, every scrap of someone.” 

“Do you regret it?”

“I didn’t until I was told I should.” Eve confessed. “Now I don’t know what to do next.” 

“Work on it.” Neon J said. “Work on yourself and hope you do better next time. S’what I do.” 

“You know a lot about this.”

“Like I said I just sound like I do, but hey,” he thumped his chest. “There’s a heart in here.” He said and Eve placed a hand on his chassis, those warnings were going wild. She couldn’t feel the beat through layers of steel, circuits, wafer thin meshes of conjoining wires, the reinforced skeletal structure he had left but...with how loud the damn thing was beating he fancied she might. 

He could feel it touch steel, bad for him. How long had it been since a woman...since anyone touched him for non-routine maintenance? You served in wars son, you can take a little contact. 

“That’s right there is.” Eve thought it a horrible thought. But it must be nice to know exactly what working parts you have, artificial or not. There’s no telling what she has anymore, long ago did that option float off in a puff of logic. “You’ve given me a lot to think about J, I’ve taken up a lot of your time.”

“I know how you can make it up to me.” J said quickly putting his hands on his hips.

“Another cape? Do you want me to paint your nails again?” Eve asked and the cyborg shook his head. 

“No not getting out of this easy this time.” Neon J held up his wrist from which two cables extended. “The newest little piece of technology. It’s not very stable or accurate….but it works in the beta testing.” He waggled the ends on which there was a pair of suction cups. “Sensory adaptors.” 

“Sensory adapters?” She asked, prodding the little things. 

“That’s right! With these attached to a willing party I can transmit signals to myself to stimulate old...parts of the old grey matter. It’ll let me….taste again.” Neon J said. “I really missed taste, Eve. Some might say I never had it but...ya know.” 

“So...what am I treating you to?”

“No, I can pay.”

“Not what I meant.” 

“Well...see….there’s this….extra, super red hot, spicy mega seafood medley I like.” 

“Oh you’re a monster.” Eve said. 

“Nah...just a guy who used to have weird tastes. You’ll get to experience ‘em for five minutes.” The pair who you’d struggle to call human left the rooftop. They weren’t quite friends but they were the closest thing that they had to an understanding partner.

“Will they be open at 3 am?”

“Best time to get fresh boiling hot seafood.”

**Author's Note:**

> i promise more happens in these stories besides vague conversations about feelings but when one of the central characters doesn't do emotion too great it's bound to come up. My solution? Another character who does emotion THE BEST! Now all the fans will show up- Neon J is the biggest character...or wait do I need Subatomic too? I'm not good at writing him... I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
